A nurse was killed and a health worker severely injured after being attacked while responding to an Ebola alert in the Congo, reports the Associated Press.
The WHO said this was the latest in a series of attacks on health workers and responders that authorities say is hampering efforts to slow the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in the world.
The attack took place on Saturday in the town of Bafwasende.
Local authorities have not yet commented on the attack or the suspects.
Last month, a Congolese politician was beaten to death in North Kivu after publicly defending the government’s response to Ebola. Earlier, on a radio show, he had been calling on the public to obey response measures, particularly social distancing and hand-washing.
It came after authorities launched a village-centred approach to fight the outbreak which faced resistance from some residents who dismiss Ebola as a hoax. There is widespread distrust of the country’s government because of how it has managed past Ebola outbreaks as well as chronic corruption.
Responders say scepticism about the disease among communities has complicated efforts to work with residents, including in remote areas and emerging hot spots that already face shortages of medical supplies and healthcare workers.
Back in May at the start of the outbreak, two tents at health centre were set alight in two separate attacks in just one week by angry residents.
Those on the front line of the response to the outbreak have previously said members of various response teams have been held captive in some health zones, and some teams responsible for safe and dignified burials have been threatened.
Diplomats
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s first case of Ebola in more than a decade has been identified as the Ugandan wife of a Swiss diplomat, who is based in Abuja, reports Reuters.
The couple was flown from Nigeria to hospitals in Switzerland on Monday.
The woman is being treated at Geneva University Hospitals, and her husband, considered a close contact, was in isolation at University Hospital Zurich, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health said.
Both hospitals are equipped to handle such cases without endangering others, it said. It was not immediately clear why the couple had been separated.
Nigeria’s Health Minister, Muhammad Ali Pate, had said the woman’s clinical condition was much improved.
The disease has now been reported in East, Central and West Africa, giving it the widest geographic spread of any Ebola outbreak on the continent to date.
The possibility that the woman might have been infected in Uganda, where officials say she spent a two-week holiday before returning to Abuja, has fuelled concerns about undetected transmission in a country where the outbreak had appeared to be under control.
Pate said the woman was “stable, conscious, communicating”, and that her test results were reverting towards “baseline”.
Her husband had no symptoms and left Nigeria on the same flight, Pate added.
Experts will travel to Nigeria to help investigate how the patient caught the virus, Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya told Reuters. He said her travel documents showed she had not visited the Congo, contradicting statements from Ugandan officials.
Ebola has now caused almost 10 000 cases and more than 4 800 deaths in the DRC. Kenya has reported nine cases and two deaths, all linked to a man who had travelled from the Congo via Uganda’s Entebbe airport.
Uganda reported 20 cases in May and June but has not recorded any since. The WHO declared it free of the virus in August.
Reuters article – Swiss woman with Ebola evacuated from Nigeria to Geneva (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Nigeria confirms first Ebola case
Kenya confirms first Ebola case after traveller’s death
WHO doctor deployed to help in DRC's Ebola crisis killed in attack
Former DRC health minister arrested for alleged misuse of $4.3m in Ebola funds